You gotta believe

Not even Hollywood could dream this up

Sports Illustrated senior writer Alan Shipnuck had a special interest in watching Rich Beem win the PGA Championship on Sunday. Shipnuck authored the 2001 book Bud, Sweat and Tees, a chronicle of Beem's unlikely journey from stereo and cell phone salesman to PGA Tour rookie winner in 1999. CNNSI.com talked with Shipnuck about Beem's improbable major victory:

CNNSI.com: You know Rich Beem real well. How do you explain what happened today?

Shipnuck: Rich always has been a phenomenal natural talent and the people around him recognized it the first time he picked up a club. It's just taken Rich a little longer to realize his potential. I don't think there's any doubt about what kind of golfer Rich Beem is. I just hope he gets greedy now and wants to win more. I know from talking to him a while ago that his ultimate goal is to play on a Ryder Cup team. I just hope he thinks big, because he's capable of anything.

You know, it seems like Rich has come out of nowhere but he's been building for this for a long while. Over the last year-plus, he's really dedicated himself to his golf game and building his swing. He finished fourth at Doral, second at the Kemper, so he's had a sneaky-good season already. He got over the hump at The International and went from there.

CNNSI.com: Rich Beem did something today that Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia , all the other big names have not yet been able to do. How in the world did Beem do it?

Shipnuck: Rich is different. When he left Magnolia Hi-Fi in Seattle and headed back to El Paso, Texas, to make one more stab at becoming a tour pro, he took a job at El Paso Country Club as an assistant pro. He was making $400 a week. While he was there, he was playing money games just about every day for $300 or $400. That hardens you. That's how the old pros did it, guys like Lee Trevino, who grew up playing not for house money but playing for their own money. You do that often enough and you get a taste for the battle. So guys like Tiger Woods don't scare Rich. Guys like Mickelson are thinking about making history and breaking records and all that. Rich just wants to make birdies. He has a simpler view than a lot of the top players. He's just having fun, hamming it up for crowd, being himself.

CNNSI.com: What was it like to watch the final round unfold on TV? You must have been going nuts.

Shipnuck: It was so exciting. I was all tingly. You know, I have a greater appreciation for how far Rich has come. This is such a unique story. What a lot of people don't know is when he made it through Q-School, not only had he never played a PGA Tour event, but he had never even played a Nike Tour event. He was such a greenhorn. I remember his first tournament his rookie year was the 1999 Sony Open in Hawaii. He doesn’t even know there's a sumptuous free buffet in clubhouse for the players, but there's Rich, outside standing in line with all the fans waiting to pay $8 for hot dog. That's the kind of guy he is.

CNNSI.com: So, is a sequel in the works?

Shipnuck: You know, the Rich Beem story is so unrealistic, so incredible that not even the worst Hollywood hack could come up with it. But I don't know, I'll leave the sequel up to Rich. I just hope he handles it differently than when he won the Kemper. After that, he had a year-and-half hangover. He had way too much fun, and I know he would be the first to admit it. I just want to see him concentrate and build on this.

 

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